Toyota Supra GT500 ’97

“The machine that ended the reign of GT-Rs and became champion.”

The GT race series in Japan was renamed the ‘Super GT’ when it became an international series from 2005. Until 2004, it was called the ‘All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC)’, and from its start it boasted the largest number of spectators for a motorsport in Japan. For this reason, Japanese automobile manufacturers poured much energy into this championship series.

The Toyota Supra entered the championship from 1994, and it was like a direct challenge against the Nissan GT-R that had dominated the series 3 years in the row, from the first year of the championship in 1993. 3 years later in 1997, the Supra finally defeated the GT-R to become series champion. The historic machine that achieved this feat was the #36, Castrol Tom’s Supra.

The drivers were Michael Krumm and Pedro de la Rosa, and they entered as the second machine of Tom’s from the second round of this year. In the 5 rounds excluding the opening round, it came strong, winning 1st place twice, and placing once in both 2nd and 3rd place, to win the series.

The machine itself had not only changed greatly from the previous year. The only significant difference was the change from the H pattern gearbox to a Hewland 6-speed sequential transmission. Other than this, the engine displacement had been lowered to 2 L, in order to allow for a lower minimum weight under the race regulation rules. The 3S-GT engine producing nearly 493 BHP is almost as is, and its increased body rigidity, changes in suspension geometry, and improvements in aerodynamics, are all in the standard evolutionary process of a racing machine.